


Confinement

by TheSteampunker



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF INJURIES AND VIOLENCE, Gen, I'm not squeamish and this was even a bit much for me, I'm taking a LOT of liberties with the lore but YKNOW LETS GO IG, Sorry it's going to be painful, The author is an asshole confirmed, This is my saying "Tommy was resurrected too early", Violence against minors, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:07:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29955870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSteampunker/pseuds/TheSteampunker
Summary: Dream laid with his back to the obsidian wall, breaths heaving as they poured out of his lungs. He swiped a knuckle across his brow to brush the loose hairs out of the way and grimaced at the dark crimson liquid he left behind. His arm dropped back to his side and he pulled a knee up to prop his other arm open to the air, letting the heat of the lava-encased room dry the blood dripping from his fingers. He let out a sigh of relief.Finally... sweet sweet silence.--OR--What would've happened if Dream HADN'T resurrected Tommy right away?**WARNING: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE/INJURY AND VIOLENCE AGAINST MINORS**
Relationships: None
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	1. A Return to Normalcy

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely a work of fiction and not about the people portraying these characters in roleplay. If they are uncomfortable with anything I've written here, or if this piece of work is mentioned to them at any point, it will be removed without warning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNINGS THIS CHAPTER**  
> Graphic Depictions of Violence  
> Graphic Depictions of Violence ESPECIALLY AGAINST A MINOR

Racing. The soft flutter of blood beneath fingertips, the hellish pace of a pulse. Racing, racing, racing.

It was…  _ sweet release _ .

“Dream…! Stop! Wait…!” Tommy fell against the obsidian wall, smooth containment unnaturally cold underneath his fingertips. The lava pulsing on the other side of the wall trapped Tommy like prey and he tried on instinct to claw his way away from his attacker through the undamageable material. His other arm wrapped around himself as his ribs  _ ached _ , Dream’s advancing stance a confirmation. He stumbled himself farther, closer to the corner, closer to any sort of escape. 

Dream pressed on. Blood dripped from his knuckles and he maneuvered closer to the teen, now shivering in the corner of the obsidian box. The older boy’s hair fell into his face, unkempt and disheveled just enough for deep scars to peek through the strands. His muscles twitched, his mouth stretched into a thin line. Not a smile, no, an expression that held the brink of his madness, a pot boiling over, a string drawn tight. Wild eyes glared at the younger blonde and Tommy’s knees gave out, now a hand holding itself in front of his chest as last ditch protection. 

At one point he had felt incredibly smug in the fact that Dream was forced to show his face, no longer able to hide behind his absurd mask.

Now, he would give anything to be instead looking at the smooth blank white again. Anything to not overlook the freckles that mixed well with splatters of blood. Anything to not gaze upon his crooked nose and scars that littered his features. Anything to avoid those  _ eyes _ .

“Dream…!” Tommy whined and Dream’s blood rushed in his ears, blocking it out. His vision blurred and his blood boiled red, red, red, red, red. 

Another punch and a whimper as Tommy was shoved into the corner of the room.

There was already the body of Tommy’s dead cat trailing blood along the adjacent wall. It continued to fill Dream’s vision and his brain blocked out the cries of help. Hands clawed at his arms to try and slow him but he persisted. The unbearable heat that filled his veins craved more, more, more, and he was helpless to against it. It choked him and he fell deeper into its undeniable pull, struggling to breath in its grip. He was so used to fighting back against it, instead watching something else in the prison cell,  _ anything _ else in the prison cell but he took its hand in his own this time and  _ drowned _ . 

  
  


*

  
  


A week.

It was only supposed to be a week. 

_ Max _ .

He would know, he helped write the damn contract.

He was actually content by himself in this cell. He could pace around its perimeter for hours, days, months on end and be fulfilled. He would flip through the empty pages of his books. Feel along the seams and uneven glue. Crease the delicate parchment pages as he scrolled through, slowly purging his mind of anything he  _ would _ write. He could trace his fingers along the obsidian walls and find every imperfection, noting it in his head for when he’d return to the same lapse of wandering around. He  _ could _ write them down, but with the lack of anything else to remember, he could just plant them deep within his memory. He could stare at the swirling lava in the farthest edge for hours, lay near it for warmth at night, place his potato diet there to cook and take the bite out of the root vegetable. He found that the perfect timing was around 25 minutes for the perfect, biteable texture to the potato. But since he no longer had a clock, he would just sit behind the vegetable and count the seconds as they passed by.

As far as things went, Dream was doing fine in the Prison.

Sapnap's visit left… something to be desired and Ranboo’s half dazed trance was nothing out of the ordinary but other than that… Dream was  _ fine _ .

Until Tommy decided to visit. 

Tommy had always been a thorn in Dream’s side. His arrival had marked the end of his peaceful days, instead introducing an era of stealing, of politics, of war. Sure, there had been squabbles before this, fights that had lasted maybe a day at most, with nothing more than fists flying between friends and others breaking it up with laughs and promises of meals. Tommy’s arrival had marked something  _ different _ , and Dream had been chasing the promise of normalcy ever since. He wanted peace for his empire, for his  _ server _ . He not only wanted it, he felt  _ responsible _ for it.

Tommy’s “Last Visit” he had been calling it, boasting about how he was better than Dream, prancing his way around the obsidian walls, completely  _ missing crack no. 3568 _ as he perused his way around. Dream’s eye twitched, he remembered.

He completely skipped over crack no.8822 and blatantly  _ stepped _ on ridge no.3455. Tommy continued to blab his mouth and Dream could feel himself slip into a comfortable anger, searing underneath his skin and boiling inside of his throat. The anger had become like second nature when the boy’s blonde hair would fill his vision, and with his mask on he could usually hide it fairly well. Now, he was left to his own devices and he struggled to keep his face neutral as his vision blurred around the edges. The boil continued around his veins until he laid comfortably inside of the heat, a flush working its way from his chest to his neck. A familiarity of the feeling returned when glancing in the direction of the younger boy and he simply leaned against the wall, running his free hand over bump no.9992. One of his favorites.

The kid continued to complain about him, whining echoing throughout the chamber and Dream’s temples throbbed. Tommy screeched at him for his past crimes, his threatening of people on the server, for his plans. Dream sighed. He didn’t need a teenage boy parroting everything he’d done back at him.

He had accumulated more than enough time in this small gateway to Hell to reflect on his decisions than was ever necessary.

Would Dream say he was  _ sorry _ ? Hm… Not…  _ sorry _ , perchance, but he did feel guilty. His quest to return to the normalcy of running with George and Sapnap, helping Alyssa build and teasing Callahan had some dastardly consequences, but if it had moved him in the right direction, he was alright with being the bad guy in their eyes.

A return to the way things were. A means to an end. That’s all it was.

If he was the villain in that means, he could live with that.

Tommy continued nonetheless, loud mouth flapping against the otherwise tranquil hellscape environment. Dream wanted to bash his head into the wall. The blonde words wrapped around his thoughts and choked the breath out of him, crawling down his neck and piercing his concentration. Any brief pauses were for Tommy to catch his breath before he continued his tirade and Dream clenched his free hand against his side, begging for patience to materialize. He wanted more than anything to  _ return _ to the days on end of nothingness. The calm. The therapeutic not-so-padded cell he had grown so accustomed to. Not even  _ only _ that, he wanted to return to the calm before the storm. Before Tommy whirlwinded his way into everyone’s lives and left destruction in his wake. He just needed to wait for Tommy to finish his hero-complex monologue and…

A crash echoed above him and Dream jumped. He pressed his hand flat against the cold obsidian as Tommy immediately began to look around himself. He flitted around like a scared animal and Dream patiently kept his hand flat against the wall, feeling for…

Another explosion rattled the obsidian wall and Dream could tell from the reverb… its origin was from  _ inside _ the prison. He raised an eyebrow, careful to not give away too much of his own emotion to the agitated teen pacing around his own cell now. He lowered his head slightly to let his uncut hair fall in front of anything he could give away.

Don’t get Dream wrong. Escaping the cell had always been in the back of his mind. Getting out and being able to stretch his legs, feel the sun on his neck beneath his mask, feel the smooth electricity of an enchanted Netherite sword jump between his hands. He missed it. He missed Sapnap’s complaining, and he missed watching as people frolicked over the partially destroyed partially fixed Community House. He missed listening to  _ laughter _ , even if it wasn’t because of him. He missed… He missed a lot.

But he didn’t miss them  _ this _ much. This wasn’t his doing.

Not even close. 

Dream was well aware that if  _ he _ was the one at fault for his own escape, the rest of the SMP would only hunt him down like an animal. And as much as Dream was used to that feeling, he had never really grown to love it. He would much rather have someone  _ else _ be at fault, with the rest of the server hunting  _ them _ down for their mistakes than the entirety of his escape falling on his shoulders.

And as much as he was waiting for someone to slip up,  _ this didn’t feel like a slip up _ .

Tommy shook as he glanced around, more panicked now. His eyes locked with Dream, who was still leaning against the wall and a nervous anger slipped into his features.

“Dream! What is the mean…” Tommy started but was immediately interrupted as another loud crash reached both of them inside the cell. This was close enough to actually shake a significant portion of the cell, and Dream had the luxury of having a stable wall to fall into. Tommy, on the other hand, toppled over onto the obsidian floor and grunted as he immediately brushed himself off.

“What is the meaning of this Dream! What’s going on?!” Tommy continued to speak and Dream  _ continued _ to drown him out. His hand laid flat against the shaken wall, with the most recent explosion so strong the aftershocks still reverberating. He ran his hand up and down the uneven surface one more time before pushing himself off the wall and glancing towards Tommy.

The blonde boy’s mouth was moving once again and Dream  _ willed _ himself to tune back into the noise, getting something along the lines of panicked screeching. He let a hand run to his temples, massaging for a hot second before he graced Tommy with a simple response of:

“I don’t know, Tommy. I don’t know what’s happening.”

With something along the lines of a whimper, Tommy turned away from Dream and ran towards his blocked escape, dancing in front of the molten light from foot to foot. Dream was well acquainted with that dance.

Tommy paced back and forth between the sides of the walls, and rubbed his hands together as his footsteps echoed throughout the cell. Dream watched with a lazy gaze as he screeched for help from people who could or could not hear him.

Didn’t matter.

Another explosion, Tommy shuffled himself quickly away from the lava as he teetered towards it and Dream stumbled towards his chest, leaning on it before turning himself around and placing his weight onto it.

Tommy turned quickly. “Dream! This is… This is your doing, isn’t it?” Tommy’s eyes were filling on the brims with frustrated tears and he swiped his hand at them quickly. Dream lazily stared up at him again and sighed, pushing a hand through his own hair. With another second to pass, Dream looked up at the frantic boy and opened his mouth, his tone once again a monotone echo.

“This is not me, Tommy. I do not know what’s going on.” He tried to calm down Tommy as he prance from wall to wall, hands not finding a place to lay comfortably. 

Dream allowed his mind to wander for a second. This  _ wasn’t _ him, and whether or not it was of benefit to him had yet to be seen so…

[AWESAMDUDE] Sorry Tommy. There’s been a security breach in the prison, I… Can’t get you out right now.

Tommy quickly typed his fingers into his communicator, the only thing allowed in the prison with him for emergencies with Sam. Dream watched as Sam handed it to him before he crossed the retracting bridge. 

[TOMMYINNIT] Sam, you have to get me out of here!

Tommy’s ragged breathing was echoing inside the chamber and Dream leaned his head back against the wall. The teenager’s knees collapsed beneath him and he kneeled on the cold floor.

[AWESAMDUDE] I’m sorry, Tommy. You’re going to have to stay there until I can figure out where the problem originated...

Tommy’s hand dropped into his lap, the communicator gripped loosely. Dream stayed leaned against the chest wall. His own hands tapped against the chest beneath him and he waited, listening carefully as Tommy’s breathing calmed down from the infrequent gasps of breath to the slow methodical madness. Tommy didn’t stand. He looked over at Dream, whose eyes were closed as his hair scrunched against the obsidian wall.

“I didn’t do this, Tommy.” The boy jumped a little at the fact he knew he had been caught and he quickly looked away from Dream, instead back to his shaking hands that still gripped the small piece of technology. The line that Sam had left him with blared  _ abandoned _ in his head and he tried his best to toss it aside. The explosions had come to an end, and the cell had grown quiet in its wake. Dream interrupted the calm once again, his tone only the smallest bit bitter.

“It seems we’re going to be seeing each other for a bit longer.”

  
  


*

  
  


“Dream! Please!” Tommy’s cries echoed through the chamber and Dream pressed on. His fist connected once again with Tommy’s shaking body and he felt numb to the cracks that mixed with the echoes. Tommy’s own arms tried to protect himself from the oncoming blows and Dream simply kicked them aside, the red in his vision growing darker around the edges. As much as Tommy whined, Dream continued.

He was chasing that quiet that he had missed for a week. He was chasing his own privacy, his  _ own _ cell,  _ only _ his. He wanted to go back. He  _ wanted  _ his confinement. He wanted to be  _ alone _ . This  **_parasite_ ** **had it coming** .

Dream let another blow cross across Tommy’s face, high on his right cheekbone that threw his head to the left, another cry breeching into the darkness. Dream wiped his bloodied knuckle on his prison garb before snaking his fingers into the front of Tommy’s own bloodied shirt. His grip twisted the tainted fabric and he yanked the teen closer, raising his fist once again as Tommy’s wide, terrified eyes met his own. Tears leaked out of the sides and blood dripped from his nose, spraying onto left cheek. 

Briefly, Dream caught the reflection of himself within the dark blown out irises of the boy. Fist raised, mouth stretched into a snarl, hair ragged over the rest of his features and eyes blaringly dangerous. 

He almost let out a laugh.

He didn’t even recognize himself. He should maybe…

“Drea…” But as soon as Tommy opened his  _ godforsaken _ mouth once again, any semblance of control once again drained out of Dream. He brought the fist back down into Tommy’s face, snapping his head back with a deafening crack as his mouth parted to reveal the damage done inside. Dream pulled his fist back once more with shaky certainty, and Tommy choked out a sob. Dream was now on his knees, looming over the boy who was only upright because of his prop against the wall. Tommy’s arms fell to his side, limp, as his whimpers leaked their way into the open air.

Tommy once again dragged his gaze up to Dream’s eyes, hoping that he would see some semblance of the person he once considered a friend in there, even if it was all just a ploy. But the downcast angle of Dream’s face hid his eyes once again in his unruly hair, and Tommy opened his mouth to scream as he realized that this really was it.

Dream noticed the twitch at the corner of the boy’s mouth and grunted in frustration. He just wasn’t getting it.

Silence.

Dream’s hands migrated from the front of Tommy’s shirt to his neck.

Silence.

His fingers tightened as Tommy’s eyes bulged in his head, his arms finally making their way weakly up his own shirt to meet Dream’s. 

_ Silence _ .

Tommy let out small cries as the last of his oxygen squeaked past his lips, blood accompanying it on its way out.

_ Silence _ .

Dream’s face stretched into a smile as he approached his final destination, his culmination, his perfect  _ symphony _ . 

Tommy gagged on his own blood. His fingers clawed at Dream’s hands, leaving the only damage Dream has sustained. His eyes watered, leaving tears dripping down to mix with the blood and snot of the struggle. His face flushed an ugly color, blending in more to the obsidian the longer he waited and finally…

Tommy’s fingers faltered.

Dream tightened his grip.

And with a gurgle of finality, Tommy’s arms fell from their position on tops of Dream’s and dropped onto the hard floor with a smack. 

Dream pressed a little harder for a second longer before releasing himself from Tommy. He let his weight drop back onto his ankles as he leaned back from his kneeled position. His hands dropped heavily into his lap and he felt his fingers twitch with the rush of someone  _ else _ underneath. Taking a deep breath in, Dream let his head fall back, his hair falling away from his face with the exception of a few strands stuck with collateral splatter. 

Finally.

  
  
  
  


_ Silence _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i deleted my note like an idiot  
> yeah its a slow burn  
> but not FOR LOVE  
> FOR uh idk bad shit ig  
> enjoy!!!


	2. The Other Corner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just Dream and a couple of dead corpses. The usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FOR THE BEST EXPERIENCE, LISTEN TO MELLOHI BY C418 ON REPEAT FOR THE ENTIRETY OF THIS CHAPTER :)
> 
> **WARNINGS THIS CHAPTER**  
> Depictions of corpses  
> Derealization?

  
Silence. Dream sighed and leaned further against the obsidian wall. 

His hands behind his head, and two dead corpses in the room with him, he relaxed into the unforgiving wall. Perfection was paired well with:

Silence.

  
  
  
  


Silence.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Dream adjusted how he was sitting and plastered the smile back onto his face.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Silence.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ Si _ lence.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Si _ lence _ .

  
  
  
  
  


Dream sighed and tried his best to contort his face into the smile once again.

It was not as easy this time.

He instead moved his arms to underneath his thighs, running his right hand over crack no.558. Surprisingly, it had gotten bigger in the past few days, but Dream attributed that to the rocking that had occurred from the explosions which he still had no foreseeable explanation for. 

It’s not like that  _ bothered _ him, but he took a second to feel over the crack once more and he sighed. The explosion was possibly for him, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was simply Sam’s faulty wiring, and the prison had trapped him inside his cell with the one person he was in there for. His brain wracked back to the timing of the event, Tommy’s panicked face and the events that followed it. Dream’s fingers flexed underneath his thigh and he felt the dirt and grime that had piled up underneath his fingernails. It sat uncomfortably against his skin and he scratched against the prison jumpsuit to try and remove the exterior debris. His fingers stained the bright tangerine with a grimey crimson. 

The fabric of the prison jumpsuit was rough against his skin and he sighed as he remembered the feeling of warmth, of electric  _ fear _ that was underneath only…

The blonde tilted his head. Once to look over at Tommy.

Still dead. Good to check.

And once over to the dead cat.

Still dead.

_ How… hm…  _ Dream scratched at the underside of his own thigh idly. He clenched one fist shut as the other continued with the subconscious task, raising his knee towards him slightly. The echoing silence did nothing to help his cluttered mind and he once again tried to no avail to settle it down to a specific date, a specific time.

But, his mind had lost count of the seconds ages ago, the silence reaching beyond the cell it seemed. When it had settled into the air, it had settled into every crack it could find, somehow making its way into the ones in Dream. He blew out a sigh of frustration. He was better than this. More self-disciplined, calmer, more collected.

He had been keeping track of the days since he’d been in here. 49 days. 

29 since Sam had stopped bringing new clocks.

He drew up the hand held in a fist up to his face before bringing it down his cheek, frustrated with himself. He removed and then plopped his hand quickly against his cheek as a warning to himself. He most likely only lost a few hours.

Most likely. He could count this as the same day.

He’d determine if that was a correct hypothesis later, he grudgingly scratched against his own cheek to calm down the chaos in his head. Another removal of his hand and a plop against his cheek, the sound only audible in the corner in which he sat. He calmly closed his eyes, restarted the seconds counter, and let the monotonous task envelope his head once more, silencing any kind of runaway thoughts that were still moving.

The return of silence. Of calm. One more step and it’d be normalcy.

The blonde let out a chuckle at the thought.  _ Normalcy _ . The  _ means _ to the  _ ends _ . The return to what has always been, and  _ should have _ always been. He pulled a bit of his cheek in between his teeth and gnawed, forcing himself to calm down before he lost count of the seconds.  _ Again _ .

Calm. Collected. Cool. Calculating.

He let out a sigh and let his head relax against the wall as he maneuvered his hand beneath his leg. 

He dug his fingernail into the familiar crack below his finger. It’s diameter hadn’t increased by much, but the change was… different. It had still changed. Dream broke, letting his face shift into a slight frown. He didn’t  _ want _ it to change.

He liked his cell. 

He liked it perfectly fine. With every single one of its 9996 cracks, bumps, crevices, ridges, holes and yes, scratches. They’d all been here when Dream had first come inside the obsidian cube, and none had changed. Up until this point.

It didn’t sit right with him.

He didn’t want change. He wanted things the same.

They were perfect as they were, why would anything different be needed?

His remaining fingers curled around themselves until they were into a fist, only his finger inside the crack open away from his palm.

Everything had an order before, why did it need to change?

His fingernails dug into his palm and his finger snaked along the crack, feeling the edge.

He dug the pad of his index finger painfully against the ridge of the sharp obsidian, and felt the now serrated edge press into the exposed flesh. He pressed harder and felt it pierce the skin softly, not enough to  _ particularly _ hurt, but enough to draw thin droplets of blood. He removed his hand from below his thigh, from the  _ ruined _ crack no. 558 and turned his focus away from it.

Holding his injured finger in front of his face, he observed as the blood pooled softly around the tip of his finger, not enough mass for gravity to race it down his finger yet. It’s deep maroon paired well with the faded oranges and purples that already graced the rest of Dream’s hand, the skin on his knuckles battered and the tint on his skin a humanly smear of rouge. 

He tilted his finger forward, enough for the droplet to form a more coherent shape before its date with gravity finally arrived. It slid down Dream’s finger in an erratic pattern and settled on the crease between his finger and his palm, not enough substance to continue further downward. It spread out in the folds of his skin, wrapping around his injured finger and he closed his fist, wiping the excess of his injury on the front of his pants. He then placed his hand under his thigh once again, but scooted his leg over enough that it was no longer over crack no. 558. He didn’t want to feel it there anymore.

His mind echoed  _ tainted _ and he quickly shut it up with a recount of the seconds.

  1. 557\. 558.



Dream perused over his cell, wondering what else had  _ Tommy  _ changed.

Tommy’s cat was still mutilated against his chest, dripping its blood into a collection pool on the top that dripped in the seam of the wood. It’s head lolled to the side and it’s tail, matted with blood of someone’s sort was pressed against the wall in an unnatural position. Tommy had gotten mad enough in the same cell with Dream that he had snapped its neck, and the blonde sighed as he remembered the soft fur snaking against his leg every so often. Even when Tommy was raving on and on about  _ something _ , Dream had the cat with him. It had liked to sit next to him as he leaned on the wall next to the lava entrance, the molten liquid no doubt making him the warmth spot to inhabit. 

Tommy hadn’t even given it a name. He simply referred to it as “Cat”. The boy had always pushed the cat around, being volatile to it in his fits of rage against… whatever had caused the Prison Lockdown. Dream usually sat in the lava corner as Tommy paced the cell and welcomed the cat into his lap as it hid from his master’s rage. The more Dream thought about it, he had spent an  _ awful _ lot of time sitting in that corner.

He glanced over to the corner now and watched as the molten liquid reflected light off the wall, hitting ridge no. 24 and crevice no. 776. 

No. 24 was the Cat’s favorite.

The animal could scratch its whiskers and head on the raised surface, while still being a safe distance away from any sort of conflict. It purred to itself as it went, its fluffy tail swishing in the air as it contently stayed away from the rampage of a monster only steps away. Dream tilted his head again.

He wondered if that ridge had changed too.

His eyes wandered back to the Cat’s lifeless body on top of the chest. It’s eyes laid open wide as it stared into the dark obsidian abyss, a milky white overtaking around the edges of its irises. Dream’s hand fidgeted underneath his thigh and his fingers messed with the stitching on the outside of the prison jumpsuit. What a peculiar color its irises were turning.

Besides the fur on its tail and near its head, it was almost completely pristine. No sign of struggle anywhere else on the carcass. Dream’s fingers flexed as he remembered the soft fur running over his knuckles, streaming underneath his fingernails as he’d scratch behind the Cat’s ears. His fingers itched with the memory and he felt a longing to return to the time, to return to the warmth of another living thing stretching out in front of him, and curling next to his thigh on an endless night. It reminded him of another time, and he reminisced back to… to normalcy.

Of Beckerson. Of Sketchers. Of…

Dream’s thoughts stuttered.

He...

He could see the white hair, the long expanse of the horse’s back but… His face fell into a deep frown.

Name. 

Name… 

His mind swirled once again, picking and depositing information to try and dig through the piles of paperwork. He chased after the memory of the horse, feeling the wind against his skin as he rode it, the saddle he placed on it proudly after…

After…

Dream let out a groan of frustration, the thoughts in his head swirling in an incoherent mess. They stretched to the edges of his neurons and threatened to leak out his ears. They jumped over the battles, leaped over the locations of scars and bruises and they traversed easily over arguments he had won. They sashayed over faces and trampled over names, they skipped through fields and fields of inside jokes and laughter and they finally landed on doors that they pried on to no avail. He gripped at his pant leg tightly. With every heave of his thoughts against locked doors, he felt his eye twitch.

Finally, he picked his head up off the wall and slammed it back, stopping the repetition of madness for a simple second. His scalp throbbed at the location of impact but he let out a sigh of relief as the thoughts seemed to move in a coherent pattern, leaving the heavy iron doors alone. He turned his focus back to the seconds, the minutes.

And so be it.

If he couldn’t remember the name of the horse, it couldn’t have been  _ that _ important.

His hand idly traced over to the top of his leg and he smoothed out the fabric he had bunched on the bottom. He ran his fingers over his face one more time and sighed as he remembered he had lost the  _ exact  _ time.

He would have to wait until Sam delivered more food for him to clarify his hypothesis. He brought a knee up to his chest and placed his chin on top, looking over to the corner in which now a lifeless body of a child now crumpled. The pool of water next to him smeared with his blood that leaked from his nose and chest.

His collarbones bruised and shirt torn in several locations, Tommy’s eyes also laid bare to the ceiling of the cell. They reflected harshly against the glowstone permitted inside the cell and his skin refracted a sickly pale blue. Dream pressed his cheek instead to his knee as he continued to look over the boy.

His fingernails had bits of blood on them from when they clawed for his life against Dream’s arms and wrists. His nose, obviously broken from the angle, no longer bled, but left a large trail of angry crimson down his face in a frantic pattern. The only thing breaking the trail of blood from the top of his face and nose was the pathway of tears from the corners of his eyes, washing the blood down instead to his neck where it smeared in a flakey pattern. His shirt’s red was mixed evenly with the spray of the struggle, and it bled into a pleasing pattern across his lower abdomen. His arms lay useless against the ground next to him, bruised and battered as much as the rest of his body and Dream glanced over his knuckles. They had not sustained nearly as much battle damage as he had, and he instinctively flexed his hand against the ground to make sure he hadn’t sacrificed too much.

A slight twinge, but nothing major greeted him and he continued his diagnosis.

Tommy’s hair was stuck up in several places by more leaking crimson, and Dream thought back when exactly Tommy had accumulated the head injury that dripped down his cheekbone and over his ear. It fell into scratches and scars across the boy’s face, and swirled with the dried tears that painted with gravity. His mind fumbled over the memory and he slowly let the hazy recast shuffle out of his mind in favor of the large ticking clock. 

Dream glanced at the water pool.

It swirled with the fluids of the corpse next to it and he sighed as he remembered that the potatoes were eventually going to land in the pool, most likely coating themselves in whatever lay inside. The blonde glanced around the cell and sighed again as he realized there was no real foreseeable way for him to clean the water, as he would only contaminate one source with another. He instead wrapped an arm around his knee and continued to stare at Tommy, his lifeless eyes drying in the hot obsidian room. He allowed the clock to continue running but once again used a small bit of brainpower to piece together the hazy jigsaw once more. He was  _ sure _ he wouldn’t want to forget it.

He edged the pieces together as his mind focused.

66124 seconds. Dream hummed in agreement with no one in particular.

That was his guess.

66123 seconds now. 66122 seconds and Sam was going to return with potatoes down the shoot, and Dream would move to go sit in the corner. And then after he moved, he would sit in that corner for 1500 seconds, before getting up for 25 seconds and eating his cooked potato near the glowstone light. Unless the Cat joined him during the 1500 seconds, then instead he would eat there, and allowed the Cat’s fluffy tail to tickle under the sides of his arms and ribs as it rubbed its way along the wall.

His mind flashed back to the possibility of the ridge no.24 changing. It flashed to the dead Cat’s eyes. It flashed to the purring. 

  
  


Maybe Dream would sit in the other corner this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i KNOW I KNOW THAT THIS IS GOING SLOW I GET IT  
> i feel just as bad for MAKING it go this slow but i must literally rips dream's character from his clutches and rebuild it from the ground up  
> he's going to have a bad time  
> don't worry


	3. Protector of One is Protector of None

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warden.  
> A person responsible for the s̶u̶p̶e̶r̶v̶i̶s̶i̶o̶n̶ protection of a particular place or thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise!!! it's still going slow lmao
> 
> **WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER**  
> Depictions of Violence

**TommyInnit was slain by Dream**

Sam’s hands stilled against the lever next to the entrance to Dream’s cell. The right hand that gripped the metal of the lever shook as his other arms froze. The echoing silence was all that reverberated through him now.

His lower left hand gripped the hilt of his sword tightly and he adjusted it on his hip as his mind stuttered. If he really thought about it he could still hear…

  
  


“Sam!  _ Please _ !” Tommy had tried. He had tried again and again, on the first day, on the second day, and all the days thereafter. His voice broke after the third, and by the seventh, Tommy’s screams were raw against the interior of the prison, carving a memory that Sam was not sure he could soon forget. He tossed in what Sam assumed was his sleep, and he cried softly enough that it was barely audible above the level of the lava boils. 

Dream was silent most days, and absolutely poisonous with his words on others. Sam could only listen across the small gap as Dream did what he did best, what he was  _ in  _ there for. Tommy’s high-pitched whines back and half-hearted insults after the first week were what kept Sam listening. 

He cried out to Sam every single day, and every single day, Sam had leaned against the wall holding the levers, fingers twitching to abide to the call. And every single day, he thought about the lifeless eyes that captured Tommy in their own, and the thought of them running free to harm others.

He had made a  _ deal _ , no matter with who. He was a loyal man, and if had agreed to something, he would see it to the end. Even if the man who wrote them lay prisoner to his own trap.

  
  


Sam had always been a careful man. He had done his best to adjust to society as well as they would let him. But, as far as hybrids went, Creepers were rare, and not always well understood.

And as Sam had traveled the land looking for somewhere to accept him, heads of his former brethren caught him on as to why.

So, he hid what made him different, kept himself safe at all costs as he traveled. Blamed his odd clothing on the weather, on disease, on any excuse he could think of at the time. It didn’t stop the stares, but it at least allowed him some breathing room. He could ride through towns without the screams of villagers accompanying his arrival, and he decided that was enough for now.

Begrudging acceptance and flimsy trust was enough for now.

He had picked up his disguises along his routes, having to steal and scavenge for the first pieces that allowed him to get more. His darkened eyes were the first to be hidden behind a large flop of lime tinted hair. He blamed the color on a bad potion, and changed the potion recipe every single time he was asked. His mouth, stretched and carved through his face like a scar was next, hidden behind a large gas mask that he discovered in a dungeon as he was running from another village. His blood had rushed in his ears as he leaned against the mossy cobblestone walls, the surface cave leaving him enough space to duck in and hide amongst the other shadows along the wall. The chest inside contained the mask, and he let himself catch his breath before taking it as his own, hoping that the next village would be more open to an outsider. His ears, pointedly noticeable as they stretched horizontally along either side of his face, were also tucked beneath his hair as best as he could. As many other hybrids had pointed ears, he could easily pawn himself off as something else if the question arose. Although, the lies never sat right in his chest and he grit his teeth every single time he was forced to resuscitate the same deception. 

He hopped from town to town in hopes of finding more of his own kind, those who walked among the shadows and danced with the flickering lights of deep-ridden caves. He not only never seemed to find any, he was instead confronted with more and more trophies of lifeless eyes, permanent screams and one-sided violence. The skins stretched horrifically against the rotting flesh used to unnerve him, almost always giving his true identity away. He had learned instead to admire the tales that usually came from the villagers, of the strong,  _ powerful _ “beast” they had managed to knock down a notch. Of their slimy green skin reflecting against the pale moonlight as their violent nature overtook them.

Sam would honor them on his own time, hearing even glimpses of his own kind a comforting thought, even if it was their ugliest moments that stuck in others' memories. 

Sam continued to wander, recounting the tales of other hybrids long past, and tried his best to find a home, only to be uncovered in some unfortunate accident.

It always ended the same.

Shunned.

Rejected.

_ Feared _ . 

The more he grew into his body, the more difficult hiding his own nature became. He began skittering on the outside of towns instead of walking in the center as his genetic duplication grew into his pained flesh. He could remember the nights as a young kid spent lying awake, tears in his eyes as the growing pains wracked his body from either side of his shoulders. 

He stole the now ragged red cloak he kept under his armor from a wonderful woman who had hung her laundry up to dry in the late afternoon. She had whistled a tune as she had done it, and was called inside by her children to tell them a story by the time Sam had picked his target. He had done his best to leave a few gold nuggets in the fabric’s stead and hoped it was not going to be missed much before he fluffed it over his shoulders. It was long enough to reach below his lower set of arms, and he kept them hanging there limp whenever he now had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting with anyone. He learned to keep them hidden, keep them still, and he left them bare when he began to armor himself in hopes they wouldn’t draw any attention.

Years went by. Villages came and went. Attacks from the locals came less often as Sam traversed beyond the normal limits of civilization, hoping to run into a sanctuary where he could simply be  _ left alone _ . All the years of battling, protecting himself and any other hybrids he had come across had run him ragged, made him so,  _ so _ tired. He simply wanted to  _ relax _ , be in a place where he could protect himself, and those who were prosecuted. Be someone that people no longer cowered away from, but someone that they relied on.

  
  
  


Tommy’s screams echoed once again in Sam’s head and he brought his lower arm up to grip the lever with the hand that was already present. 

Sam had been lounging in the corner the time the scuffle had broken out, him hearing a slight raise of voice from Tommy, and more surprisingly, Dream. Pained words were being thrown across the obsidian cell, and Sam inched closer to the levers, leaning against the wall in case of catastrophe. 

He had thought back to the lockdown, the promises he had made. Not only to himself, but to the entire server. To keep them safe. To keep Dream locked away.

And as the argument became more one-sided, more pained, more grunts of pain than words, Sam’s hand gripped the lever, but did not pull.

He was finally someone people relied on. His mind had flashed through all the times his help had been answered with shouts of panic, with raised blades and prepped arrows. Of all the times his aid had been burned down, thrown back at him, and met with splash potions that burned his skin. He was  _ finally _ the protector he had always wanted to be. People accepted, no, relied on him for his help, they placed their  _ trust _ in him.

Tommy screamed. He couldn’t see directly, but from the whimpers of pain, he could tell what direction the scuffle was leaning. 

He… He couldn’t betray their trust. He needed to keep Dream inside. He could  _ not _ escape. He would ruin everything. Again. He would regain his power and he would hurt…

A crack and a cry from the boy.

Sam squeezed his eyes shut. For the good of the people. For the good of the server. For the good of the place he had tried so  _ hard _ to stay in, to become not just another passing face. For the smiles they gave him on foggy mornings, for the bread baked fresh and for the laughs shared over late nights. He wanted to protect  _ everyone _ , but as Tommy screeched from the assault and the lava reflected heavily against Sam’s golden armor, he felt himself tear in two. 

Impossible.

It was impossible.

He was suddenly thrown back to his younger self, caught between his altruistic acts and his self-preservation. Between others of his kind he had to leave behind, the blood leaking too much, the mob of villagers too close, and the burn of their torches too hot on his skin. 

Always torn.

And his shaking body knew it.

Was there ever a time in which he had been whole?

Sam’s fingers twitched as he heard a particularly hard blow land on someone inside the cell. His heart raced, his eyes twitched back and forth from the lava gate to the lever.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to shout, pull the lever and save Tommy from the demise that slowly consumed him. Tommy’s cries only got worse as he gurgled through his teeth, his incoherent speech silenced by several blows to his face. The obsidian cell echoed out the remains of the fight and the creeper hybrid only clenched around the lever absently. It was all he could do as his heart raced into his throat, his eyes flickering. The lava felt too hot, too close, burning. Memories of torches burned quickly through his thought process. He felt himself  _ suffocating _ .

Dream was hurting Tommy. He was hurting him beyond the repair, he was scarring him, and changing his mind to revolve around the fear he instilled. He was taking his repaired toy and smashing it to bits against the wall, the echoes of pounds against the obsidian blocks audible through the molten gates. The cries were getting softer, and the grunts of frustration that bubbled inside Dream were leaking into the open air.

Sam should’ve pulled the lever. He should have done what  _ several  _ voices in his head screamed at him to do. To finally push the sword through Dream’s chest and laugh as he cried out, fingers slipping against the smooth enchanted Netherite. He should have twisted in deeper as Tommy got away, took the bridge across and got cleaned up by another adult, someone he trusted. He should have dug his foot into Dream’s wound, making him suffer from the pain, not letting him pass out. He should have watched as the light drained from his eyes, took his mask off to allow himself a wonderful breath of someone else’s demise, a taste he hadn’t partaken in in  _ so _ long. He could allow himself to watch as Dream decayed in the cell, his final resting place, and the server could return to normal.

To foggy mornings. To bread. To campfires that smelt of home and redstone that always had hints of sulfur. 

His brain surged with ugly thoughts and he let them rain as his fingers gripped the lever, and the hilt of his sword tighter. Dream’s death could not come soon enough.

He allowed him to live at the request of others. But he knew that protection came at a price, and his death would surpass the toll. It would keep everyone safe. It would keep Tommy safe.

It would…

_ Tommy _ .

A last cry and a snap of something left Dream panting inside the cell the only thing coming through to the other side.

Sam’s knuckles strained against his fingers at his grip on the lever and the hilt of his sword. Another shuffle from inside the cell, a thud that Sam recognized as Dream sitting down in a huff, and then…

Silence.

  
  


Nothing but… ugly,  _ ugly _ silence.

  
  


He felt a rage pass over him for a second before something much  _ worse _ took its stead, drowning him in a perpetual wave of… a familiar feeling.

Of let down. Of guilt. Of  _ not enough _ .

Sam let his eyes trace back to times in which he had successfully saved anyone he chased for, who he reached out to help. Only regret, pain, blood, and other macabre scenes reached his memories. He silently added another one.

A protector who could never protect anyone. 

His fingers slipped from the lever and he crouched down onto himself, steading his shaking body by gripping onto his knees with his lower arms. His free right hand reached up to his mask and removed it gently by undoing the clasps that held it in place.

Sam looked from the lava, to the lever, and to the last place the green-haired man had seen Tommy stand. Looking proud and relieved to finally be at this place for the last time, on top of the stone brick bridge.

Sam’s breath caught in his throat as he imagined him there now, blood running down his face and body, looking at him with the same blank eyes he had imagined Dream with earlier. His face would be an ugly shade of violet and his shirt would be torn around the collar and…

Sam closed his eyes.

He’d seen enough of that before.

He let his knees hit the hard floor of the prison next to the wall of levers, and he dropped his mask on the ground next to him. Raising both hands to his face, he covered his mouth and eyes to the best of his ability, and  _ screamed _ .

  
  


*

  
  


Falling. Rushing and falling. Rushing and falling and being pulled from every conceivable direction into a ragged torn object that was being stretched too thin. Tommy opened his mouth to scream and was immediately bombarded with a stifling liquid, reaching inside his mouth and coating every single orifice of his body. He was pulled from one direction to another as he tried to move, and was thrown around like a ragdoll, the constant descent bubbling his mind with deception of direction. He tried to fight it and was immediately hit with the resurfacing pain of the former fight, of…

Death.

Tommy’s eyes cracked open, but was only met with inky blackness that surrounded him, dragging him into a depression with no surface. 

He was dead.

The surrounding tormentor wrapped its tendrils around him, knowing of his current internal struggle, and decided to cement the idea. They wrapped around his neck and  _ squeezed _ . Tommy cried in  _ agony _ .

He gagged on the liquid as it continued to torment him with images, memories,  _ feelings _ of the past. More liquid reached around his ribs and prodded at damage that lay underneath, the feeling of the bruises developed pushing into his spine. Tommy’s hands reached wildly as he tried to grasp onto something,  _ anything _ , before he was shoved back into a recurring loop of:

Choking.

Choking.

_ Choking _ .

_ Choking. _

_ Dying. _

_ Dying again. _

He stopped moving. Three lives come and gone. Three lives struggle to maintain, and the last one snuffed out not with a great, righteous battle but with a whimper in the corner of a dread man’s cell. Tommy sniffled, the pain from the action reaching into his sinuses. What a  _ waste _ .

Death was no escape it seemed. He allowed the rough pull of the afterlife to toy with him, playing with his memories and forcing him to relive that horrid smile. 

There was no use in fighting the permanence that surrounded him. He went limp in the arms of the Reaper, the liquid clogging his breathing enough for him to bathe in the unfortunately familiar feeling of asphyxiation. The familiar feeling of being inches within Death, except this time his dodge had been too slow, too sloppy. He had fallen into its arms and was wrapped in a suffocating hug that drowned him in a retelling of a hated story.

He closed his eyes. 

He was home.

Unfortunately home. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Kid!” A hand shook Tommy from his descent, and the touch of someone else forced Tommy to cough, his hands flying to his body as the blackness receded. He held onto his aching ribs and body with one hand as he pushed himself up with the other, the hand still firm, reassuring on his shoulder. His eyes watered as he tried to open them, sliding his hand up from his ribs onto the hand that now occupied his shoulder, keeping them close. The constant pressure of something  _ solid, real _ , kept him grounded and he slowly blinked the blurriness in his vision away.

“Wilbur…?” Tommy tried, his voice sounding too broken, too foreign in his mouth as his throat protested the intrusion immediately. His eyes blinked some more, the jolt from the stoppage of the fall still disorienting to him.

Brown hair filled his vision. Brown hair and a large coat.

Tommy tried to open his mouth again only to feel dizzy, dizzy, dizzy, dizzy.

He felt himself slump forward against the person with him. Shaky arms tried to push Tommy up again, but failed, succumbing to the slump as much as the rest of his body.

He closed his eyes and felt the comfort of someone else near him. He was tired. So tired.

So very… very… very… tired. The hand gave him another squeeze on the shoulder.

A reassurance.

He took that as enough.

Tommy passed out against the stranger with the brown hair, the black coat, and the vibrant red tie. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will die on the "Awesamdude has 4 arms instead of 4 legs" hill  
> I saw a fanart of it ONCE and I was toast
> 
> Also yeah, I genuinely think Sam is once of the most intriguing characters on the server so we're going to be getting a fair bit of him  
> Had to set the stage for the trauma lmao


End file.
